Lose Yourself
by Avari wind seer
Summary: The thoughts of an angel in the moment before death. [oneshot]


**I do not own Tales of Symphonia.**

-

She hadn't thought it would be so hard.

She had known, from the beginning, what she was getting herself into. She knew the legends by heart. She knew the price of the final sacrifice.

But nothing had ever mentioned the pain.

It wasn't a physical pain – that would not have meant anything to her dulled nerves – but more of an emptiness that wrenched at her heart. She didn't want to go, but the dull ache was a thousand times worse than a quick end would be . . . and she was growing tired of it all. Tired of waiting. Tired of knowing exactly what the future held – and not being able to change it.

She had promised . . . but things had changed since then.

_She _had changed.

First, loss of desire.

It had seemed natural at first, just a minor detail, nothing important. She had brushed it off carelessly, not realizing that it was more than a loss of hunger – it was an absence of the yearning for life that exists inside every human being. It was that feeling that drove her listless to her bed at night, and woke her in the morning with the sense that it wasn't worth going on.

Second, loss of escape.

Deprived of the ability to sleep, there was nothing she could do against the overwhelming terror that plagued her at night. There was no escape, no refuge from the dreams – no, not dreams, for they were real. She closed her eyes, but she couldn't get away. She opened them again, and nothing had changed.

Third, loss of empathy.

It had begun with the numbing of her body, and it hadn't been long before her mind felt completely detached from her physical form. A few more days, and she had forgotten the feel of the wind on her face, the feel of another hand in hers, fingers entwined with her own. It wasn't just her body that had been made insensible – her spirit was being drawn away, into black oblivion. She could no longer feel the sadness of her friends, the love of another. She was separate, alone.

Fourth, loss of expression.

The bleak look on his face when she had to take his hand, her finger gently tracing the lines on his palm – it was only another reminder of things gone wrong, one she had almost learned to block out completely, just another complication in her life that she didn't need to think about right now.

The only comfort left for her now was in the nights when he noticed she was still awake. He would come over to her, wrapping one arm around her shoulders, even though he knew she couldn't possibly be cold.

Talk to me, she had told him, desperately – not with words, of course, but he understood. And he did talk. It didn't matter what about; it only mattered that she could hear his voice when her own was lost to her.

Strange how such a small thing – the sound of a human voice – could be so calming, and seem so essential. But it _was_ essential, in a way, because to her it was the last tie to her humanity – which was all too quickly vanishing.

Those times were the only times that she could be glad he didn't know the truth. Telling him would mean the end of the easy friendship that existed now between them – she would never have been able to bear it if the worried looks and whispered words of the others had spread to him, too. It might have been different had he suspected something, but he didn't, because that was the way he was.

All she could offer to him was a smile – forced, though he didn't notice – and small.

And all he could offer in return was the companionship of a friend.

She couldn't feel the soft touch of his hands on her face. She knew it – sensed it – but could not feel it.

She would lean unconsciously into his embrace, burying her face in his shoulder, breathing in the scent that was unmistakably _him_.

He would wrap his arms tighter around her slim body, running one hand through her long hair over and over again. It was a rhythm she had grown to be familiar with, though she couldn't feel the touch of his hands on her back. She liked to think that, somewhere inside of her, she could actually feel the steady pulsing of his heart beating in time with hers.

And that was how it was, an unspoken, wordless understanding between the two of them. Standing alone on the platform, looking down at them all for the last time, she liked to think that maybe he had known all along. She could, after all, allow herself one final fantasy . . . before . . .

It came with a sudden rush and a dulling of the senses that were still allowed to her failing body.

Loss of understanding.

He was whispering something into her ear, but she couldn't hear him. She seemed oddly separate from her physical body, unable to focus on him.

And the second blow struck. She knew somehow that she couldn't have helped any of it, that it wasn't her fault, but it still hurt.

Loss of vision.

She wanted to see, before her eyes closed for the final time, but everything was blurred. She was crying, tears welling up and spilling down her cheeks.

And then, the final stage.

Loss of soul.

She felt her eyes burn with a terrible power. He was drifting away, growing fainter and fainter in the bright light of judgment that threatened to engulf them all . . .

She was gasping for breath, she was feeling the wind harsh against her face, she was watching the sun set over the ocean, she was fighting for her life, she was plummeting towards the earth from hundreds of feet up, she was . . .

Her mind was spinning, caught up in so many moments in time. She couldn't think, couldn't see, couldn't speak . . .

And what scared her the most was that she couldn't remember his name anymore.


End file.
